Practice articlePerformance analysis of two-degree of freedom fractional order PID controllers for robotic manipulator with payload

- Two-degree of freedom fractional order PID controllers are implemented for a two link robotic manipulator with payload.
- Cuckoo search algorithm is used for optimization of controller parameters.
- Robustness testing is done for model uncertainties, payload variations, disturbance rejection and random noise suppression.
- Two-degree of freedom fractional order PID controllers outperform their integer order designs and PID controllers.

The robotic manipulators are multi-input multi-output (MIMO), coupled and highly nonlinear systems. The presence of external disturbances and time-varying parameters adversely affects the performance of these systems. Therefore, the controller designed for these systems should effectively deal with such complexities, and it is an intriguing task for control engineers. This paper presents two-degree of freedom fractional order proportional-integral-derivative (2-DOF FOPID) controller scheme for a two-link planar rigid robotic manipulator with payload for trajectory tracking task. The tuning of all controller parameters is done using cuckoo search algorithm (CSA). The performance of proposed 2-DOF FOPID controllers is compared with those of their integer order designs, i.e., 2-DOF PID controllers, and with the traditional PID controllers. In order to show effectiveness of proposed scheme, the robustness testing is carried out for model uncertainties, payload variations with time, external disturbance and random noise. Numerical simulation results indicate that the 2-DOF FOPID controllers are superior to their integer order counterparts and the traditional PID controllers.